The movie belongs to the disaster cycle, a trend that began with “Airport,” in 1970, and was followed by “The Poseidon Adventure” and “The Towering Inferno.”

The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael summed up the film as “an entertaining marathon of Grade-A destruction effects with B-Picture stock characters spinning through it.”

In their cynical approach, the producer, director and writer show contempt for the audience, because they know that no matter how cheesy the picture is, viewers would flock to see L.A. getting crashed and destroyed.

Ironically, the movie preceded the real-life disastrous earthquake in January 1993 by less than a decade.

The movie was originally released through the innovative technology of Sensurround. Opening on November 16, 1974, “Earthquake” quickly became one of the year’s top-grossing films.

Film Editing: Dorothy Spencer

As a schlocky disaster film, “Earthquake” competed with “The Towering Inferno,” which was nominated for Best Picture and other awards, winning Best Cinematography for Fred Koenekamp and Joseph Biroc and Film Editing for Harold F. Kress and Carl Kress. The Art Direction Oscar deservedly went to Coppola’s “The Godfather, Part II,” which won Best Picture and other Oscars.